American audiences must be enjoying S. Craig Zahler’s “Dragged Across Concrete,” or it wouldn’t be #1 on Netflix right now.
Zahler’s intense thriller actually had a tough time getting any sort of press in 2019. A lot of critics either ignored it or called it “racist.”
The result was that after its world premiere in Venice competition, the film was shunned by every other festival, including Toronto, and ended up grossing a paltry $660,132 globally.
The Daily Beast described it as a "Vile, Racist Right-Wing Fantasy" writing that it "revels in the violence it inflicts on women and minorities, in particular." Vulture called it a “basic boneheaded, right-wing action movie. Vanity Fair opined that "Dragged Across Concrete is energized by a dynamic in which the bad white guys get to say, do, and represent whatever repugnant worldview they want.”
And they say film criticism isn’t dead.
Rather, the film reminded me of the works of crime writer Elmore Leonard — an immensely engrossing 158-minute film that flies by and feels like half its length.
The fact that “Dragged Across Concrete” has now found an immense audience on Netflix is music to my ears. It wholeheartedly deserves it. The film not only works as an idiosyncratic pulp-opera, but also as a slow-burning drama that makes it utterly fascinating to watch our crooked lead cops (played by Mel Gibson and Vince Vaughn), slowly but surely disintegrate into a world of underground violence.
S. Craig Zahler is one of the most refreshing new cinematic voices of the last decade. He hasn’t even gotten his due from critics either. Is it because they seem to constantly, and obsessively, wonder what his political affiliations are rather than focusing on the quality of his movies?
Does anyone outside of their bubble actually give a s**t? Of course not. That hasn’t stopped The Daily Beast from proclaiming him “the filmmaker making movies for the MAGA crowd.” What?!
“Bone Tomahawk”, “Brawl In Cell Block 99” and, especially, “Dragged Across Concrete” should speak for themselves. These are singular works from a singular cinematic voice. Zahler’s very much what one might qualify as a methodical filmmaker, depicting the madness of morally tortured men, His dialogue packs a satisfying snap and the action almost always plays out in unbearably excruciating fashion.